It was children’s ministry Sunday a few weeks back, which means all the children were in the service with their parents, including our little, um, angels. There was a little family two rows up—a dad, a mom, and their sweet little girl of probably five years old, but I didn’t really notice them until we started singing the second set of songs.

The little girl was on the end, where she could see the stage better. Mom was next to her on the right, then dad. I could tell the little one had her mom’s hair, dark curls bouncing down her back.

The room was dim, the lights from the stage were bright, and the little family’s silhouettes swayed in front of us. During the swell of one chorus, the mother’s hand reached up to the sky and her face was tilted up. I imagined her eyes were closed. I watched as the little head beside her turned, looked at her mom and ran her eyes up to her mom’s hand. Immediately, the little girl lifted her little hand high in the air. She kept her head tilted back where she could see her mother and studied her own hand, then her mother’s, and switched arms to make sure she had the same hand in the air. Her lips were still. She did not know the words like her mom, yet, but she had a hand to lift. 

I think I stopped breathing. I grinned, my vision blurred with tears. Then the mother raised her other hand, and the little girl followed, reaching high to heaven, tossing those beautiful curls against her back as she looked up. I wanted to laugh out loud at the beauty of the moment. Mom didn’t  even notice her little watcher until the song was nearly over.

They will worship what we worship, the thought fluttered in my chest.

My hands began to tremble as I looked down the aisle at my own brood. Where are my eyes and hands pointing? I wondered. Heaven help us.

Those silhouettes dance against my eyelids today. I want my eyes and hands to be spilling over with God’s grace, dripping onto my kids, soaking them in His love, showing them how and who to worship.